Hilary in the mission field ... and photos!

Okay, hello everyone.

Thanks for all the emails. I love you all so much. I printed some this morning and was walking down the sidewalk reading them and just smiling and laughing. People were staring; then again, they always stare.

I love my zone. I love this work. It feels so good to be out in the field. We´re in an area called Santa Ana. It's so pretty. Green and hilly. Our apartment is up pretty high and we have a giant window with a gorgious view. You should google earth it. From our window we can see a giant statue of some virgin and also a huge basilica (which we visited today which was amazing!).

My companion is Hna. Rodriguez and she is great. She's funny and knows her way around and does a good job teaching. She is from Mexico.

Okay, I know I shouldn't be worrying about things at home, but I really need to know 1. What's the status with my car. 2. with my computer. and 3. Can you check my grades? go to byu.edu

Okay, so before I left the Lima CCM (mtc) I had to give a talk. It's nerve wracking because every week they give everyone a topic and then in sacrament meeting they announce who will speak. And I was called. It went well though. I've been complimented multiples times on my pronunciation and grammar... So, that's reassuring. I think it is obvious to some that I'm trying so hard to be grammatically correct and for that reason I talk somewhat slowly. But I know that when I work hard, Heavenly Father blesses me with the gift of tongues, as well as the gift of interpreting tongues (jaja because the people here speak so quickly and I am actually able to understand them.) That same Sunday, I had my farewell interview and the branch president told me that he wished I was staying in Peru and he hopes more Hermana Nortons come to the CCM. Haha I thought that was really sweet.

Okay, did you get my request for a package with scriptures? What's the update there? You could just order them online and have the shipping address be my address. If you have bought them already, and have yet to ship them, let me know because I have a couple other things I need. Thanks!

Okay, things in the field are going very well. Almost every day we eat lunch with a member family and they take such good care of us. We're so so blessed. We have a baptism set up for this Friday for a very special woman named G. This week, we're going to invite four people to be baptized. They're all very ready and I have really high hopes for them. Please pray for Y., A, F, and E.

I need to go, but I want to let you know that every day I'm out here I realize more and more of why I'm serving a mission. It's not just for the people of Quito or for me, but it's also especially for my children. Please look up the quote by President Hinckley about sister missionaries. Okay, I love you!

Hermana Norton

The quote below is the one Hilary was referring to. It is powerful! joanna

“Today many sisters are being called to serve. Many more are preparing to serve. Not because they aren't married or don't have anything else to do, but they have the desire to serve. One reason that the Lord wants more sisters to serve is because within the next generation He will send His priesthood army to the earth. He wants to send choice spirit children to mothers who have been prepared, properly trained, and taught in the gospel. What better schooling can a mother have than the experience and growth she gains through serving a mission.” --President Gordon B. Hinckley

"Yes mother, I can actually read minds! ... problem is their thoughts are in Spanish" (Sam)

BUENOS DÍAS! HASTA LUEGO.......

Hello to one and to all! I thought i´d start my email off like that cuz its something we hear quite a bit here. That, and also, ´´el numero que ha marcado, no se encuentra disponible en este momento´´.. or they purposefully gave us the wrong number. These Spaniards are tough! :) I´m just gonna say right up at the front that when you learn a new language, the old language that you had gets all jumbled up in your head so if I spell anything wrong or if something doesn´t make sense, blame it on the Spanish.

Yes mother, I can actually read minds! I thought it would prove helpful out here in the mission field.. the only problem is that I still can´t understand all of the Spanish that goes on here so even the thoughts that I do read, they don´t make sense. :) No but really, I knew I needed to write something more than I did. :) I´m happy that my quick message put you at ease. Both E. Jones and I had to come back anyways so it worked out.

Wowow! Love the updates on everything. Especially the missionary calls. If you hear about any others, please please let me know. I FINALLY got this letter from Jade Warburton. He had sent it to the Provo mtc and they had to ship it out here and I just barely got it this last zone conference. He told me he got his call and he´s serving in the Málaga mission! I¨m pumped! You probably remember but he graduated my year, was friends with Carson Wilde and Hunter Cannon and his cousin I think is Jake Warburton, Hil´s friend. I¨m super pumped.

P. is doing better but is still out of town, in a bigger town call Almeria. We haven´t heard much. We think the family thinks we were the start of the health problem........?? No sabemos porque... ya veremos! R. has been hard to contact as well. He has been legitimately busy this last little while but when he´s free he doesn´t make it happen. He´ll be baptized in the future. I know it. And he knows it too, he´s told us!! :/..... We´ll keep workin. I don´t have a ton of time.. I wish we had more, but we are really really hoping to baptise this girl named Y. this Saturday. She has known the church/Book of Mormon /everything is true for a long time but her parents are very against it... and controlling and everything. Understandable, she´s 16 so the parents have a right to be protective but they are being very overprotective and she is actually already living like a member. Nothing in her life will change till she is baptized. This is what we´re going to share with the parents tonight or tomorrow and we´ll go from there. Wish us luck! We also have these two awesome Colombian families who are actually friends that have fechas for the 21st. I really wish I could tell you guys the stories of everyone of these people but we just don´t have time. I still have to write President so i´m gonna have to finish up.

A couple things real quick, these are some notes I wrote down to remember to tell you... Jones told me I was sleep talking in Spanish one night. :) cool. I´m speaking this Sunday annnnnnd we´ve already spoken once.. small branch, you getta speak a lot! Woot! AHH our project! I wish I could write for 10 mins about our project. Just know we´re involving our members a ton with the investigators. :) We were talking to this Spaniard and she told us that my accent is better than my comps... oops. :/ hah Ah! We finally met President Deere and his family! They are phenomenal! I hope I get to write about them again later..

And I think thats all. I really gotta go. I love you all! Everything is better than great here! Know that I´m thinking about you every second of the day!

-Elder Norton

Feed my Llamas (Hilary's in the mission field)

HOLA everyone!

Our flight went well and Quito is BEAUTIFUL. So much more green than Lima. It is amazing and I love it. Our mission president and his wife are so sweet. Today we're at the mission home and tomorrow we have training and then get our assignments and leave around noon! I'm so happy to finally be able to really begin teaching REAL people. I don't know when I'll be able to have a p-day, but I have to tell you all about the last Saturday in Rimac proselyting.

Okay I should go! I love you all!

les amo mucho!

Hermana Hilary Norton

Happy 4th of July!

Hello mother!! and friends and family! Ha.. I guess i´m just a mammas boy..

The work is great in Huércal-Overa! This part of the Lords vineyard! We had a couple of pretty major bumps last week.. but todavia... the work is great!

As of early last week, P. started getting sick... she has had respiratory problems for most of her life due to her smoking but as of recently, she got very sick to the point where she wasn´t eating very much. It got really hard to stay in contact with her as well and we finally had to get in contact with her daughter who doesn´t live with her. She too had been worrying. Turns out, early thursday she went with her daughter to a hospital in almeria and has been there ever since. :/// So please pray for her.. We´ll see.

R. gave us a little surprise early last week. We were just going forward with our lessons.. and this day, we were talking about having the gift of the holy ghost and how we receive it at baptism. We started talking about his baptismal fecha, which was set for the 14th of this month and he stopped us and told us that he didn´t want to wait for the 14th. He wanted to do it this saturday.... So obviously we got really really excited and started moving forward with planning the baptism and the final interview and whatnot... BUT... between the next 2 days... an immense amount of doubt set in. We even warned him that satan would attack him with doubts and fears and to seguir adelante... or... keep going forward i guess is the translation.. but something happened. Something changed him. We think it may have been his mom.. or something he may have read... We don´t know. He told us he wanted to experience the world. We obviously had several more lessons with him where we just sat down and talked.. and i´m just gonna be honest.. we answered evvvery little question he had or doubt he brought up... or.... whatever.. but he was firm. That's why we think someone or something changed him. Not just his own mind. Anyways... rough... and we´re still trying to work with him... but the work moves on!! We have a bunch of new investigators and people coming to our english classes and the work is flourishing..........!

To answer your questions, most of the people we work with are our investigators, not ones that other missionaries worked with. And we are the only two missionaries in our area. I learned that at least in our mission, the missionaries are dispersed through the mission by amount of members in the cities, not by the amount of people in the cities. Usually the bigger cities have more members anyways but they missionaries are dispersed by amount of members and we only have like 24ish members.. hah nuestra ramita = our little branch.

Ahhh! I love the updates on everything! We´re already out of time here AGAIN... but its fine. I don´t have much else to say... other than.... its getting WICKED HOT here. It has hit 46 degrees here... I´ll let you all look that up in farenheit(sp) as some homework. Either way... Its hot. Also, a couple other things.. I bought myself a translater. Its awesome. Really look into getting one for Hil. Dictionaries are a mega pain to carry... so much to the point that we don´t carry them.. but we NEED a way to find and learn words... look into that one I sent you the name of. I bought a ´´Franklin Advanced Global Translater´´ and its good. Also, I got a letter from elder Thunell. I may have already told you. I´m going to write him back and send it home to you guys. then just give it their family or just mail it to wherever he is. Anyways... I think that's all. I love you! I hope the Fourth of July goes great there. Everything really is going awesome here. The church makes it soo easy for the missionaries. Honestly all we have to think about is eating, sleeping, preaching, and ironing our shirts. :) It really puts the pressure on us to do all we can. They make it so easy for us to work, if we don´t do it............. you can finish that sentence how you want to. I guess my.. invitation to all who read this is pray a little more, work a little longer, try a little harder to do your part in the missionary work where you are. ´´Lift where YOU stand´´ as Pres Uchdorf says. :) I love each of you! God be with you...

-Elder Norton

"Yank your socks up to your armpits!" (Or, work HARD.)

Dear family,

I love you all so much! Thank you for your emails. So cool to see where Sam is! It's so much more European than Peru. I love that we get to have such similar experiences in two totally awesome, completely different places. Mom, I can't believe all the news you packed into that email! So much is going on at home! And aside from the news about Sister P. and Aretha, it sounds like things are very good at home. Go enjoy a free bean burrito combo meal at Taco Amigo for me with one of your coupons you got during the parade.

Okay, things are good here. I think we leave Tuesday or Monday. We don´t have our flight plans yet. But I'm ready to get out of here. This place is so amazing and every day is so fun and I'm learning so much. But, I'm looking forward to the real work. I'm looking forward to new people and real investigators. A big chunk of our district left Monday because they're getting a new mission president and the current one wanted to bring in the new missionaries to deal with that so that the new one didn't have to... Does that make sense? Anyway, that was one of the hardest goodbyes I have ever had. Right next to saying goodbye to my family at the MTC and Hna. Masquez. I feel like we've grown so much together that I have really great friendships with them. Anyway, I miss them a lot and I hope to be able to attend their homecomings. I just got an email from one of the sweet sisters that was in our group the last time. These people are so great.

So in that Elder Holland talk I mentioned, one thing he said was, "Yank your socks up to your armpits!" (Or, work HARD.) Since we have like five days left, I've chosen this to be our district's theme for this next little bit. We're working hard. But. There's a lot of room for improvement.

My English scriptures are falling apart. Could you buy a new set and send them to my mission home? I'd like them in black with the two different books, the triple and the bible, in the normal size, not my small size. Thank you very very much. I love you.

Okay, time for the random little things. I got my hair cut. I cut off like four inches! It was kind of on a whim. The hair-cutters (jajaj) I forgot what they're called) came to the MTC and I didn't know until they got there and Hna. Ellis and I were like, "Let's go get our hair cut!" Also, I don't think I have mentioned that I'm the Coordinating Sister. Basically I'm just the helper sister with all of the North American sisters. So it's fun to have that calling. Good experience.

One of the teachers here at the CCM served in our mission and is so awesome and has just adopted us as his little siblings. He is so great. He gave me a blessing when I was sick and he brings us treats and gets copies of music that we want to sing (we have to perform in the firesides and stuff). Last night we had a little testimony meeting with him and he told us about his family. I'll have to write a letter about it because I'm almost out of time. I have five minutes left.

Hna. Ellis and I have been scheduling our bad days. That's a really cool thing to do. We heard it in a talk so when something is going wrong on any day we say, "But today is a good day so we can't complain." And then on our "bad" day, we're overdramatic about everything so it's hilarious and it ends up being really good.

Our lessons are going really well. I can definitely see so much improvement. Some days my comps tell me that I talk too much and so then when I talk less they ask me to talk more. (They know a little less Spanish than I do and have hard time. We all need prayers for our Spanish.) It's funny.

Reading the Book of Mormon is my absolute favorite pastime. It's like a treat when we get to read. We'll have grammar class and then a workshop and then a fundamentals class and then thirty min to read the BOM and it's like YAYAYAY.

Okay, gotta go. I love you all! Hopefully I write you in a week! Hope all is well! Love you MOm! Love you Dad! Love you Adam! Love you Mitch! Love you Sam! I pray for you all ten times a day!

Hermana Hilary Norton

Mosiah 7:19 "Therefore, lift up your heads, and rejoice, and put your trust in God"

Wow! Soo much!

Its so good to hear from/about everyone! I really do love all the info, stories, and jokes. Everythings going really well here too! The work is harrrrd. Missionary work is just that... work. :) sin embargo, todo vale la pena! Its all so worth it! Its been getting reeally hot here too. Hah.. We were eating at this members house the other day and there was a plate of cheese on the table for us to use with our food and it was honestly melting right there on the plate. I tried to pick some up and it barely stayed together. You know its hot when cheese just melts... sitting there on the table... haha its been up in the high thirties recently.. which is like 98ish in fahrenheit.. hah.... whooooo hoo... :) but its great.

Its great to hear about adam and baseball! Sorry I haven´t been able to write you an email recently adam, we write our mission president an email every week too with info and numbers about the week so its hard to smash it all in. I´ll do my best.. but honestly, I lose my mind when I read about how baseball has been going recently. There is ALWAYS something I can brag about when it comes to Adam Norton.

Its good to hear about the family get togethers! Really! School just barely finished here but you guys are right in the middle of summer there. Anyways, tell them I love them next time you see any of the extended family por favor! Wow, I had no idea Sister P. had passed away. :( Sounds like it was a great service though.. And one of our chickens too! Wow, all sorts of deaths back home! We killed the freakiest wasp hornet thing here today. We can add that to the list.. I´ll try to attach a picture of it.

OHMYGOSH. I knew Brave was going to be sooo good! AHHH. I want to see it soo bad! Anyways, I´m giving my 2 year movie fast right now. I´ll see it later!

Our baptism is still on for Saturday. Our investigators are doing well! Satan works very hard but things are going well. P. has incredible faith! Its hard at times because she is slowing down a lot. She smoked a lot when she was younger and it has really taken a toll on her, but she´s still moving forward.

We´re excited! R. is growing too. Its great. He had a bad experience with this other church trying to baptize him when we wasn´t ready so he was a bit tentative but he has a lot of faith and confidence in us. Its great. We actually almost baptized this whole family yesterday too.. haha funny story/awesome miracle. We met this girl in the street one night and she told us to come by one day but when we stopped by she told us she didn´t want anything to do with us and closed the door... we were kinda confused but the guy across the hall had heard us out there and he opened his door. Turns out he´s been looking for a church and he let us in without hesitation. He and his wife are from Colombia and they have two kids, a 16 yr old son with slight retardation, and a 4 year old girl. They were both without work and without options. They listened to our every word and were very interested. We came back the next night and he told us that he found work and that he believed it was a blessing from god. We testified to him that it was because of his desires to find a church and his trust in God and they agreed whole heartedly. The problem is that his work is in France and he was leaving 4 days later without his family to live in France for 3 months. We called Pres Clegg for permission to baptize them if they agreed and he said to move forward. They obviously tentative because of the rush and quickness of it all but we continued to work with them. We did all we could to help them read and pray and know how to find their answer but they didn´t end up reading and praying to know. Kinda a let down but they still believe very strongly and they came to church yesterday which was great. He is going to leave for France for 3 months and when he returns... ¡VAMOS A MOJARLES! WE GONNA GET EM WET!

Anyways! :) everything is great here. Nuestra obra misional es la obra del Señor! Lo sabemos! Couple of things... I got the package. AWESOME. Thank you much! Something I realized... we all say the exact same things alllll around the world. Exact same things. Por ejemplo.. this lady interrupted(sp) E. Jones the other day and then she paused and said, excuse me for interrupting... in spanish obvio but it is the Exact same phrase I have heard a million times back in the states. Thats only one example.. Oh another one! I found out that they say the... You´re in trouble!!... phrase.. with the same inflection and everything too. Kinda funny.

BTW... I guess there was an earthquake here in Huercal recently.. like... a week ago. We were visiting a neighboring pueblo when it happened so we didn´t feel it but I guess there was just a really small one.. like nothing was destroyed or anything.. just a little wobble... AND I MISSED IT! :( haha. Oh last thing... I may have mentioned this before.. not sure but we teach almost exclusively south Americans. And, like 90 percent are Ecuadorians. No joke. Hilary is going to have soo much success. Soo much.

Anyways, Gotta go! But I love you! Yes you, if you are reading this! :) Mom, I love you! Have fun in southern Utah! Dad, I love you! Play a lot of golf in Cali! Admo! I love you! Have a blast at scout camp and play a lot of golf this summer! Mitch and Jennica and family, I love you guys! Hope all is well with the kids! Hilary-- Hermana Norton, I love you! Be Bold. Talk to everyone. Be Happy.

-Elder Norton

I would be fine doing this for the rest of my life. BUT. I just miss you all too much

Hola familia

Things are good here. I´m happy and healthy and the Lord is blessing me every single day. I would be fine doing this for the rest of my life. BUT. I just miss you all too much.

Our companionship got switched up and I´m with Hermana Ellis all the time now. Hermana Giles has a new North American companion, and Hna. Ellis and I are the only two North Americans without Latina companions. So teaching out in the city on Saturdays will be interesting. Things are going smoothly in our lessons and we have a lot of awesome companionship study. I feel so lucky to be able to just think and talk about the Gospel all the time. I don´t have to worry about anything else. Just the most important stuff. I´m in a pretty good place.

Okay, last night I got your package with all the pictures and pass along cards and letter and talk and quote. Thank you so so much!! It made my day/week! I love all the pictures and I loved your letter. It's so fun to read your letters. Also, thank you for the pass along cards! I used one today! We were trying to get to the post office after the temple and couldn't find it, so hopped in a taxi back to the bus stop near the temple and it turned out the taxi driver had attended church a few times a couple years ago! So I made a little conversation and then when we got out I handed him a pass along card! Okay, I'm still learning how to do this.

SO, how's Strawberry Day's? I'm so bummed to be missing it! I don't think I've missed it since I've been a Utahn. Oh, And thank you for getting my friend's addresses [I DID receive Sarah's postcard. Tell her I loved it. It just didn't have her address on it.]. Also, thank you for maintaining the blog for me.

So, I feel like I never get the chance to include cool spiritual experiences in my emails or anything like that. So, with what time I have left, here goes.. I just finished the Book of Mormon on Sunday. I got more out of it this time than I have in all the other times I've read it. It is absolutely my favorite book and I know that it contains the fulness of the Gospel. I know that Joseph Smith restored Christ's church to the earth today. On Sunday's we watch devotionals that have happened in Provo (speaking of, can you send me talks? I really want to read some. If there is any way you could get copies of the ones that happen at the MTC or just any really good ones. And pouch mail them to me or Dear Elder them. I would love that.) and this time it was Elder Holland. SO amazing.

Oh the other day we taught a lesson about the laws of tithes and at the end I said, "Entonces, ¿usted guardará la ley de castidad?" That was pretty hilarious/embarrassing.

Okay, I'm out of time. I love you Mom! Thanks for everything! I'm attaching some photos! Love you Sam! Love you Mitch! Love you Dad! Love you Adam!

Hermana Norton :)

For those of you that don't speak Spanish, like me, the translation for what Hilary asked at the conclusion of her tithing lesson is "So will you keep the law of chastity?" Joanna